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POLITICAL DISABILITIFS. 



SPEECH 



HON. GEOKGE VICKEES 



OF ]M^VRYLA.ND, 



DELIVERED 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 



JANUARY 15, 1872. 




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WASHINGTON: 
F. & J. RIVES & GEO. A. BAILEY, 

RErORTERS AND PRINTERS OP THE DEBATES OF CONGRESS. 

1872. 



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POLITICAL DISABILITIES. 



The Senate having under consideration the bill 
(11. R. No. 380) for the removal of legal and political 
disabilities imposed by the third section of the four- 
teenth amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States — 

Mr. VICKERSsaid: 

Mr. President : It is not my purpose to fol- 
low the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sum- 
ner] in the remarks which he has made, be- 
cause his amendment is not only not germane 
to the subject-matter properly before the Sen- 
ate, but is BO palpably unconstitutional that I 
consider it unnecessary to make any comment 
upon it. He undertakes, by this amendment, 
absolutely to forfeit chartei's granted by the 
State governments, as well as by the national 
Government. It is so clearly unconstitutional 
in its prominent features that I shall not now 
consider it, but shall proceed to speak on the 
subject before the Senate, which is the bill 
granting relief from political disabilities to 
the southern people. 

Mr. President, the causes and influences 
which produced the war should not be judged 
entirely by its tragedies and results ; neither 
"^nuld the character of it be described as a 
'-" the ordinary sense of destroying 
one (iuv- nt to erect another upon its 

ruins ; to set aside or displace one set of rulers 
to substitute others ; not of the character of 
the revolution in Mexico and other South 
American republics ; not such as that which 
occurred in England and in France, which cul- 
minated in the dethronement and execution of 
their kings. I am not to be understood as jus- 
tifying or approving secession, for I mourned 



over it as for lost children ; but I am endeavor- 
ing to state the southern view of the charac- 
ter of the conflict as a truth of history without 
a gloss ; and I do this with a view of bringing 
the mind to a proper consideration of the cir- 
cumstances and the condition in which we are 
now placed, that from this stand-point we may 
the more plainly see and perform our duty to 
the country, to the southern people, and to 
ourselves. 

It will not be denied that the South not only 
believed that the Federal Government was one 
of limited and specific powers, but that the 
Constitution had been violated in the refusal 
by several of the States to surrender fugitives 
held to service, and by the imposition by the 
Government of high protecting duties on im- 
portations for the benefit of sectional inter- 
ests. These were some of the complaints and 
allegations of that section; The people were 
educated politically in that faith, and for many 
years these subjects, and the attempts to pro- 
hibit them from carrying slave property into 
the Territories, were frequently and ardently 
discussed in Congress, in their State Legisla- 
tures, and in public assemblies. At one period 
the doctrine of nullification had obtained such 
a strong hold upon the public mind of the 
South as to hold the peace of the country in a 
state of vibration. It may not be altogether 
unprofitable to revert to the teachers and teach- 
ings of the fathers of the Constitution, and 
their contemporaries and successors, upon mat- 
ters of such gravity. 

When the subject of the adoption of the Con- 



stitution was before the conventions of tlie 
different States, it was contended by some of 
the ablest and most eloquent opposers of it 
that the Confederation was sufficient for all 
necessary and essential purposes; that it had 
united us in our struggles for liberty, and had 
furnished men and means to conduct the war 
to a glorious termination ; that patriotism and 
a sense of common danger were ties strong 
enough to bind the States against a common 
enemy, and that they needed no other politi- 
cal organization for defense or progress ; that 
Switzerland was a confederacy consisting of 
dissimilar governments; that that republic had 
stood in its integrity for four hundred years, 
though several of the individual republics which 
composed the confederacy were democratic, 
others aristocratic ; and that they had, thus con- 
stituted, braved the power of France and Ger- 
many during that long and eventful period — 
this they had done in the neighborhood of 
powerful nations, headed by ambitious and 
warlike monarchs; that our country, separated 
by the expanse of ocean from the Old World, 
with its anti- republican kingdoms and empires, 
and each State possessed of republican insti- 
tutions, could certainly, under such advantages, 
maintain a confederacy for all useful and defens- 
ive purjioscs. They were unwilling to make any 
further surrender of political power ; and those 
who did so took every precaution, as they be- 
lieved, to limit and specify the powers of the 
Constitution, and to preserve the sovereign 
and reserved rights of the States against all 
encroachment and invasion. 

It was conceded by the writers of the Fed- 
eralist, and by others of eminence, that it was 
to be a Government of delegated and specific 
powers. The practical question afterward 
arose, how v/ere the States to be protected 
against encroachments by the administrators of 
that Government; each being sovereign, within 
its own jurisdiction and powers. Alexander 
Hamilton said in the seventy-eighth number 
of the Federalist, "There is no position which 
depends on clearer principles than that every 
act of a delegated authority contrary to the 
tenor of the commission under which it is 
exercised is void. No legislative act, there- 
fore, contrary to the Constitution can be valid. 
To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy 



is greater than his principal ; that the servant 
is above his master ; that the Representatives 
of the people are superior to the people them- 
selves." Mr. King, of Massachusetts, after- 
ward of New York, is reported to have said 
in the Convention, " It was of the nature of a 
commission given by the several States for 
performing acts of a general nature, which no 
one State was separately competent to do." 

In 1792 the Federal and anti-Federal parties 
were more distinctly organized, growing out 
of the construction of the Constitution in refer- 
ence to the extent of the Federal powers, and 
which have ever since been the subject of earn- 
est and serious discussion and contention. The 
power of the Federal Government soon became 
a subject of controversy. So early as 1794, 
General Washington, then President, sent a 
message to Congress upon what was called the 
whisky insurrection, in which he stated that 
oombinatious to defeat the execution of the 
laws laying duties upon spirits distilled within 
the United States, and upon stills, had from 
the time of the commencement of those laws 
existed in some of the western parts of Penn- 
sylvania. The peace of the Union being again 
disturbed, Mr. Madison, in 1812, in a message 
to Congress, stated that a secret agent of the 
British Government was employed in certain 
States, more especially at the seat of govern- 
ment in Massachusetts, in fomenting disaffec- 
tion to the constituted authorities of the nation, 
and in intrigues with the disaffected, for the 
purpose of bringing about resistance to the 
laws, and eventually, in concert with a British 
force, of destroying the Union and forming the 
eastern part thereof into a political connection 
with Great Britain. 

In 1814, when it became necessary to raise 
troops for the defense of the country. Governor 
Strong, of Massachusetts, said, "The Govern- 
ment of the United States is founded on the 
State governments and must be supported by 
them. In the arrangements of the different 
powers the State governments are, to many 
purposes, interposed between the Government 
of the United States and the people." "The 
State Legislatures are the guardians, not only 
of individuals, but of the sovereignty of their 
respective States, and while they are bound to 
support the General Government in the exer- 



6 



State and the General Government ; but I am 
speaking of the early tutilage of the people 
by the great leaders of the party, enforced, as 
before stated, by some of the prominent Fed- 
eralists of New England at the critical periods 
of the embargo and the war, and I ask Sena- 
tors, after such lessons from such eminent 
tutors, whether so much astonishment should 
have been excited at their natural results ? 

But, coming down to a later period, I pre- 
mise that the Constitution of 1787 recognized 
the existence of slavery as an institution pro- 
tected by its provisions, and entering into the 
numerical apportionment of representation in 
the House of Representatives. To secure the 
owners, the following is a portion of the fourth 
article: " No person held to service or labor 
in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 
into another, shall, in consequence of any law 
or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service or 
labor may be due." Mr. Madison, in the 
fifty-fourth number of the Federalist, correctly 
stated that "the Federal Constitution there- 
fore decides with great propriety on the case 
of our slaves when it views them in the mixed 
character of persons and of property." 

But in August, 1852, the honorable Sen- 
ator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] in a 
speech delivered in this Senate, possibly the 
first great speech of the Senator after he took 
his seat in this body, in commenting upon the 
Constitution, and especially on that portion of 
it relating to this domestic institution, cor- 
rectly quoted the language of one of the ori- 
ginal amendments to that instrument,that ' ' the 
powers not delegated to the United States by 
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States respective])^, 
or to the people," and the Senator justly 
added that stronger words could not be 
employed to limit the power under the Con- 
stitution, and to protect the people from all 
assumptions of the national Government, and 
added, "Its guardian character commended 
it to the sagacious mind of Jefferson, who 
said, * I consider the foundation corner-stone 
of the Constitution of the United States to 
be laid upon the tenth article of the amend- 
ments,' " which tenth article is the one just 



before quoted by the Senator in reference to 
the reserved power of the States. 

With his usual emphasis, and to make more 
emphatic this constitutional maxim, he super- 
adds, " Beyond all question the national Gov- 
ernment, ordained by the Constitution, is not 
general or universal, but special and particular. 
It is a Government of limited powers. It has 
no power which is not delegated." And in 
further comment upon this interesting and 
momentous subject of relative constitutional 
power, which the honorable Senator from Mas- 
sachusetts seems to have studied with so much 
diligence, he repeats substantially his former 
argument forthe purpose of impressing it upon 
the mind of the Senate ; and to convince Sen- 
ators of his ardency and sincerity in announc- 
ing constitutional views and opinions, he said, 
" To the nation were delegated high powers, 
essential to the national interests, but specific 
in character and limited in number. To the 
States and to the people were reserved the 
powers, general in character and unlimited in 
number, not delegated to the nation or pro- 
hibited to the States. The integrity of our 
political system depends upon harmony in the 
operation of the nation and of the States. 
While the nation within its wide orbit is su- 
preme, the States move with equal supremacy 
in their own. But from the necessity of the 
case the supremacy of each in its proper place 
excludes the other. The nation cannot exer- 
cise rights reserved to the States ; nor can the 
States interfere with the powers of the nation. 
Any such action on either side is a usurpation." 

How analogous in sentiment, if not in ex- 
pression, is this language with that used by 
Senator Hayne in his great discussion with 
Mr. Webster, and who said, "When any State 
is brought into direct collision with the Fed- 
eral Government, in the case of an attempt by 
the latter to exercise unconstitutional powers, 
the appeal (to the people) must be made by 
Congress, (the party proposing to exert the 
disputed power,) in order to have it expressly 
conferred, the exercise of such authority must 
be suspeuded. Even in cases of doubt, such 
an appeal is due to the peace and harmony 
of the Government." And he [Mr. Sumxer] 
quotes the language ofthemessage of President 
Jackson, which said, " I regard an appeal to the 



6 



State and the General Government ; but I am 
speaking of the early tutilage of the people 
by the great leaders of the party, enforced, as 
before stated, by some of the prominent Fed- 
eralists of New England at the critical periods 
of the embargo and the war, and I ask Sena- 
tors, after such lessons from such eminent 
tutors, whether so much astonishment should 
have been excited at their natural results? 

But, coming down to a later period, I pre- 
mise that the Constitution of 1787 recognized 
the existence of slavery as an institution pro- 
tected by its provisions, and entering into the 
numerical apportionment of representation in 
the House of Representatives. To secure the 
owners, the following is a portion of the fourth 
article: *' No person held to service or labor 
in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 
into another, shall, in consequence of any law 
or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service or 
labor may be due." Mr. Madison, in the 
fifty-fourth number of the Federalist, correctly 
stated that "the Federal Constitution there- 
fore decides with great propriety on the case 
of our slaves when it views them in the mixed 
character of persons and of propertj'." 

But in August, 1852, the honorable Sen- 
ator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumxer,] in a 
speech delivered in this Senate, possibly the 
first great speech of the Senator after he took 
his seat in this body, in commenting upon the 
Constitution, and especially on that portion of 
it relating to this domestic institution, cor- 
rectly quoted the language of one of the ori- 
ginal amendments to that instrument, that ' ' the 
powers not delegated to the United States by 
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States respective!}', 
or to the people," and the Senator justly 
added that stronger words could not be 
employed to limit the power under the Con- 
stitution, and to protect the people from all 
assumptions of the national Government, and 
added, "Its guardian character commended 
it to the sagacious mind of Jefferson, who 
said, *I consider tlie foundation corner-stone 
of the Constitution of the United States to 
be laid upon the tenth article of the amend- 
ments,' " which tenth article is the one just 



before quoted by the Senator in reference to 
the reserved power of the States. 

With his usual emphasis, and to make more 
emphatic this constitutional maxim, he super- 
adds, " Beyond all question the national Gov- 
ernment, ordained by the Constitution, is not 
general or universal, but special and particular. 
It is a Government of limited powers. It has 
no power which is not delegated." And in 
further comment upon this interesting and 
momentous subject of relative constitutional 
power, which the honorable Senator from Mas- 
sachusetts seems to have studied with so much 
diligence, he repeats substantially his former 
argument for the purpose of impressing it upon 
the mind of the Senate ; and to convince Sen- 
ators of his ardency and sincerity in announc- 
ing constitutional views and opinions, he said, 
" To the nation were delegated high powers, 
essential to the national interests, but specific 
in character and limited in number. To the 
States and to the people were reserved the 
powers, general in character and unlimited in 
number, not delegated to the nation or pro- 
hibited to the States. The integrity of our 
political system depends upon harmony in the 
operation of the nation and of the States. 
While the nation within its wide orbit is su- 
pi'eme, the States move with equal supremacy 
in their own. But from the necessity of the 
case the supremacy of each in its proper place 
excludes the other. The nation cannot exer- 
cise rights reserved to the States ; nor can the 
States interfere with the powers of the nation. 
Any such action on either side is a usurpation." 

How analogous in sentiment, if not in ex- 
pression, is this language with that used by 
Senator Hayne in his great discussion with 
Mr. Webster, and who said, "When any State 
is brought into direct collision with the Fed- 
eral Government, in the case of an attempt by 
the latter to exercise unconstitutional powers, 
the appeal (to the people) must be made by 
Congress, (the party proposing to exert the 
disputed power,) in order to have it expressly 
conferred, the exercise of such authority must 
be suspended. Even in cases of doubt, such 
an appeal is due to the peace and harmony 
of the Government." And he [Mr, Sumnku] 
quotes the language of themessage of President 
Jackson, which said, " I regard an appeal to the 



source of power, in cases of real doubt, and 
■where its exercise is deemed indispensable to 
the general welfare, as among the most sacred 
of all our obligations. Upon this country, 
more than any other, has, in the providence 
of God, been cast the special guardianship of 
the great principle of adherence to written 
constitutions." 

But the Senator from Massachusetts, fol- 
lowing up the train of vigorous thought upon 
the most vital subjects, that of constitutional 
power, and the redress and remedy for its ex- 
ercise and infraction by congressional usurp- 
ation, and looking to the logical sequel of his 
positions, naturally referred to the distin- 
guished writers and profound statesmen of his 
country. Prominent among them was Thomas 
Jefferson, who in 1798, uttered words of solemn 
import. The Senator therefore said as a con- 
clusion to his last words, which I have quoted, 
"These principles were distinctly declared by 
Mr. Jefferson in 1798 in words often adopted 
since, and which must find acceptance from all 
parties, 'that the several States composing 
the United States of America are not united 
upon the principles of unlimited submission 
to the General Government ; but that by com- 
pact under the style and title of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States and of the amend- 
ments thereto, they constituted a General Gov- 
ernment for special purposes, delegated to that 
Government certain definite poivers, reserving 
each State to itself, the residuary mass of right 
to their own self-government, and that ichcnso- 
ever the General Government assumes undele- 
gated powers, its acts are unauthorized, void, 
and of no force. ' ' ' Not voidable by an applica- 
tion to the courts or to any other tribunal, but 
ipso facto void, and of no force or effect. Mr. 
Jefferson understood the import and power of 
the words which he used, and adopted the 
strongest and most effective that his vernacular 
could furnish to give point, clearness, and 
effect to the idea which he wished to convey. 
In the Virginia resolutions of 1798, prepared 
by him, he declared that the Federal Govern- 
ment " was not made the exclusive and final 
judge of the extent of the powers delegated to 
itself, since that would have made its discre- 
tion, and not the Constitution, the measure of 
its powers, but that, as in all other cases of 



compact among parties having no common 
judge, each party has an equal right to judge 
for itself as well of infractions as of the mode 
and measure of redress." The Kentucky 
resolutions of the succeeding year not only 
i-e.isserted the right of the States to judge of 
infractions, but that nullification was the right- 
ful remedy. And Mr. Madison said that where 
resort can be had to no common superior, the 
parties to the compact must themselves be the 
rightful judges whether the bargain has been 
preserved or violated. 

President Jackson seems to have carried the 
doctrine of the right to judge of the Constitu- 
tion further than Mr. Jefferson or Mr. Madi- 
son, in their published opinions. The Sen- 
ator from Massachusetts in his memorable 
speech, to which I have alluded, said, "And 
here I adopt with entire assent the language of 
President Jackson, in his memorable veto, in 
1832, of the Bank of the United States. To 
his course was opposed the authority of the 
Supreme Court, and this is his reply, ' If the 
opinion of the Supreme Court covers the whole 
ground of this act, it ought not to control the 
coordinate authorities of this Government. 
The Congress, the Executive, and the court, 
must each for itself be guided by Its own opin- 
ion of the Constitution. Each public officer 
who takes an oath to support the Constitution 
swears that he will support it as he understands 
it, and not as it is understood by others. It 
is as much the duty of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, of the Senate, and of the Presi- 
dent, to decide upon the constitutionality of 
any bill or resolution which may be presented 
to them for passage or approval, as it is of 
the supreme judges when it may be brought 
before them for judicial decision. The author- 
ity of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, 
be permitted to control the Congress or the 
Executive, when acting in their legislative 
capacities, but have only such influence as the 
force of their reasoning may deserve.' " The 
Senator added, that with these authoritative 
words of Andrew Jackson he dismissed the 
topic. Before the conclusion of the Senator's 
speech he declared that he would not obey the 
fugitive slave law. That conclusion was a 
legitimate corrollary of the speech, and of 
the alleged right personally to judge of the 



8 



constitutionality of an act of Congress, and 
any other conclusion would have been a non 
sequiliir. 

Mr. Webster, in u speech at Capon Springs 
in 1851, said, "It is written in the Constitu- 
tion, ' No person held to service or labor in 
one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 
into another shall, in consequence of any law 
or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service or 
labor may be due.'"' He goes on to say: 
"That is as much a part of the Constitution 
as any other, and as equally binding and oblig- 
atory as any other on all men, public or pri- 
vate. And who denies this? None but the 
abolitionists of the North." lie further 
stated in that speech, and in that connection, 
"I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, 
that if the northern States refuse, willfully 
and deliberately, to carry into eflect that part 
of the Constitution which respects the restora- 
tion of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide 
no remedy, the South would no longer be 
bound to observe the compact. A bargain 
cannot be broken on one side and still bind 
the other side." 

To sustain the power of the States, and in 
opposition to the views taken by the advocates 
of Federal power, and of a reference of all 
disputed questions between the States and the 
Federal Government, it was contended by the 
former that there were cases in which infrac- 
tions of the compact or Constitution might 
be palpably made by ihe General Government, 
of which the Federal courts could not take 
jurisdiction. For instance: suppose Congress 
should, under its power of taxation, levy an 
almost indefinite tax upon the jieople for the 
purpose of distribution among works of inter- 
nal improvement ; or, suppose after such ex- 
tensive taxation. Congress should appropriate 
the money to the establishment of presses, 
churches, ttc, or for any other unconstitutional 
object, the courts could not take jurisdiction 
in such cases. 

Mr. Madison, in his report of the Virginia 
resolutions of 1708, said that there might be 
instances of usurped power which the forms of 
the Constitution might prove ineffectual against, 
infractions, dangerous to the essential rights of 



the parties to it; and in further argument upon 
this point, that great man said, "However 
true, therefore, it may be that the judicial 
department is, in all questions submitted to 
it by the forms of the Constitution, to decide 
in the last resort, this resort must necessarily 
be deemed the last in relation to the author- 
ities of the other departments of the Govern- 
ment; not in i-elation to the rights of the 
parties to the constitutional compact, from 
which the judicial, as well as the other depart- 
ments, hold their delegated trusts. On a»y 
other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial 
power would annul the authority delegating 
it; and the concurrence of this department 
with the others in usurped powers might sub- 
vert forever, and beyond the possible reach 
of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution 
which all were instituted to preserve." 

The honorable Senator from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Sumner] had doubtless drank deep at 
the fountains of constitutional wisdom and 
construction thus opened by the sages of the 
country and the fathers of the Constitution 
before he made the memorable speech in 1852 
to which I have referred. It is well known 
that Messrs. Calhoun, Hayne, McDuffie, and 
other renowned statesmen of the South, im- 
bibed and proclaimed the Madison and JefiPer- 
son doctrines of 1798 and 1799; and in all 
the mutations and conflicts of parties in the 
South from that period, a large majority of the 
people of that section entertained the same 
views. During periods in the history of the 
country they were not always prominently 
presented and made the subjects of comment 
and controversy, as well because the course 
of events did not make it necessary, as that 
they were well understood to be the theory 
and groundwork of a political organization 
in the South upon great constitutional ques- 
tions. 

Although in 1832, when a crisis exi-^ted and 
had almost culminated in civil war, and though 
the distinctions of Democrats and Whigs existed 
among them, the great majority of those party 
divisions believed either in nullification or se- 
cession, however divided they might have been 
in opinion upon the expediency or present 
propriety of resisting the laws. They believed 
in the right of one or the other remedy, but 



9 



many of them doubted the expedienc}' of its 

attempted exercise at that eventful period ; 
but their children and grandchildren were 
instructed and educated, politically, in the 
principles of Government and constitutional 
law whicli had been transmitted by the early 
statesmen and fathers of the Ilepublic. 

While the country remained in tranquil- 
lity and the laws wcra respected no one ever 
dreamed of imputing disloyaltj' or a want of 
patriotism to the generous and gallant people 
of the South. They furnished the great staple, 
cotton, by which foreign goods to a great 
extent were purchased, the balance of trade 
maintained, and the country jireserved from 
financial embarrassment by a drain of the 
precious metals ; they consumed immense 
quantities and values of domestic fabrics, 
and contributed largely to the industry, com- 
merce, and prosperitj' of the country ; their 
views of the Constitution, its checks, and 
guards ; its powers, restraints, and prohibi- 
tions ; its limited character, nature, and rela- 
.tion to the States; and their reserved rights 
and sovereign capaci'ies, never were imputed 
to them in any light of disparagement, in any 
possible sense. Their opinions were honestly 
and firmly maintained. When in 1812 war was 
declared against our first and only antagonist, 
in defense of the interest and honor of the 
country, it was their voice which made the 
demand, and their bono and muscle that 
were freely offered in sacrifice upon its altar. 
No braver people ever stepped forth to main- 
tain the honor of the flag, the dignity of the 
Government, the rights of the sailor, or the 
Union of the States against domestic treason 
and foreign force and machinations. In the 
Mexican war their blood and treasure were 
freely given and expended, and they were 
always held as a free and ready offering 
whenever the country needed the one or the 
other. 

From the election of Mr. Adams in 1821, and 
the latitudinarian views of the Constitution 
then expressed, and the increased duties on im- 
ports, which began to excite the jealousy and 
alarm of the South, in what they deemed a 
tax upon one section to advance the interest 
of another, the subject of State rights, which 
had lain comparatively dormant, (except 



when revived by some supposed attempt to 
engage in works of internal improvement, or 
to increase duties on importations was brought 
into clearer notice and activity; the increase 
of import duties, and the ugilation of slavery 
in the Territories, gave full scope to the views 
and opinions of the South upon the nature, 
character, and powers of the Government. 

The m'ghty efforts of Mr. Websterand other 
great men who entertained different views upon 
the various subjects of the tariff, finances, rev- 
enue, and the Territories excited the public 
mind and produced immense agitation and 
much alarm for the safety of the Constitution 
and the Union. Parties were arrayed for 
years; intensity of feeling and action, ambi- 
tion, patriotism, sectional feeling, interest, 
and argument were aroused and brought into 
active and energetic use to maintain and 
obtain the administration of the Government. 
It resulted in the choice of a sectional Pres- 
ident in 18G0, the first ever elected as such, 
and this was unfortunately succeeded by an 
organized, conventional, formal secession or 
attempted withdrawal of eleven States from 
the Union. This, as they alleged, was in 
accordance with their views of constitutional 
right. Not in their view, as a measure of war 
or rebellion, but as a dissolution of the com- 
pact, a withdrawal from the partnership, and 
a willingness to adjust and settle all the rights, 
obligations, and responsibilities growing out 
of their former relation, by mutual and satis- 
factory arrangement and according to the prin- 
ciples of equity ; that the General Government 
could exist and continue its operations with- 
out them, as it did before Rhode Island and 
North Carolina, acting as sovereign and inde- 
pendent States, consented to give their adhe- 
sion to the Constitution. 

This was opposed on the part of the Govern- 
ment, and by those who entertained different 
sentiments and opinions upon its characterand 
duties, and the relation which existed between 
the States and the Federal Constitution ; they 
deemed thelatterindissoluble, and the States so 
inflexibly bound, thatthe people evenof eleven 
States — two more than formed the original 
Constitution — could not change their political 
relations and affinities, and must stand or fall 
by the power of the General Government. 



10 



Each claimed to be sovereign ; each had been 
trained to believe in their respective theories, 
and as no Government like ours had ever ex- 
isted, and history furnished no exainple or iu- 
Etruclion by which the great question mi^htbe 
solved, it v/as to be determined by the wager 
of battle. Peaceful efforts were proposed, 
tried, and failed ; the hopes and fears of the 
counh'y were aroused, and it was hoped that a 
good Providence would avert the calamity of 
war. But it came, with all its terrors and all 
its horrors ; it has passed into history, and its 
true character is to be written by an impartial 
historian, whose pen has not yet been formed. 
The history of reconstruction followed. The 
South made a great mistake in going into 
secession ; the North made a serious one by 
its plan of reconstruction. Many who sup- 
ported and sustained the Government through 
the whole period of the war, who stopped not 
to cavil at measures which they deemed ille- 
gal, because of t!ie end to be attained, hesi- 
tated, faltered, and withdrew their support at 
the plan of reconstruction. The feelings en- 
gendered by the war caused many to sustain 
those who advocated and prosecuted it for a 
considerable period, and who chose not to 
separate from them wiih vvrhom they had acted 
during the perils of the country, but every 
month that followed, and every new act of 
reconstruction, of disfranchisement, of disabil- 
ity, of degradation of States, lost friends to the 
Administration. 

This was jiereeptible to the dispassionate 
observer, and is the result of the influence 
upon the public mind of the spirit and genius 
of our institutions; of the history and tradi- 
tions of our country ; of its former greatness 
and unity of feeling ; of patriotism in peace 
and war; of a common ancestry ; of language; 
of general ideasof agreat and glorious future; 
of the union of feeling, of purpose, and of effort 
on the field of strife against a common foe, on 
the mountain wave, in the sanguinary conflict 
with a powerful adversary; and of a common 
hope of a speedy retura.to fraternal union and 
harmony. It found a lodgment in the hearts 
of men, of Christians, of friends, of philan- 
thropists. Thanks to the good and great Ruler 
of the universe, that even in our fallen state 
there remains that sense of charity, of benev- 



olence, of kindness, of forgiveness, of sympa- 
thy, and of friendship Vi-hich neither policy nor 
statecraft can eliminate or destroy! 

Why, Mr. President, so rejoiced was the heart 
of the nation upon the surrender of Lee and 
the return of tranquillity, that it forgot all the 
tragic scenes of the war, and looked only to 
the i^romising and delightful prosjiects and 
fruition of peace. My candid opinion is that 
if President Lincoln had lived to carry out 
his programme of reconstruction, or if his suc- 
cessor had been permitted to consummate what 
his predecessor had begun, we should now be 
a happy, a cordially united, and prosperous 
people ; and the Republican party stronger, 
with a more hopeful future. Every fresh at- 
tempt at reconstruction lias acted upon the 
party like the rebound of an overloaded gun 
upon its possessor. The idea of taxing the 
men of the South, and of enforcing every civil 
duty upon them, while disabling them by acts 
of Congress from the enjoyment of equal rights 
with the most humble and obscure, is not con- 
sonant with the genius of our Government nor 
with the spirit and temper of our people ; in 
fact, the idea is not American, it is exotic, 
and cannot be incorporated into our American 
system, nor made comj^atible with our views 
of civil liberty. 

The practice of calling the rebellion a Dem- 
ocratic rebellion, and of cha,rging the Demo- 
crats of the North with a want of loyalty to the 
Government, is in as bad taste as it is incon- 
sistent with the truth of history ; for it is known 
to all that with comparatively few exceptions 
the Whigs and Democrats of the South went 
into secession and supported that cause, while 
the mass or majority of them in the North sus- 
tained the Government with men, money, and 
arms. The fact must be patent to all who are 
not blinded or infatuated by jjarty spirit that 
without the aid of the Democrats of the North 
secession would have been successful. Now 
that the war has terminated successfully for 
the Government, it does not become those who 
supported it to taunt with disloyalty those who 
gave it as effectual aid as themselves, because 
they did not cooperate in subsequent legisla- 
tion which they deemed inconsistent with the 
principles and spirit of the Constitution. 

But it is alleged by some as a reason for 



11 



keeping up invidious distinctions in the South 
that they do not faliy accept and conform to 
the situation or new condition of things jiro- 
duced by the war and the legislation sub- 
sequent to it. Surely, no sensible man can 
expect that because the resistance to the Gov- 
ernment was suppressed, the South exhausted, 
conquered, and subdued, such a result could 
change the opinions of men on constitutional 
subjects. Physical force, bayonets, nor the 
sword ever changed an opinion ; the mental 
forces are superior to the physical ; the latter 
maybe controlled and modified by the former, 
but the operations of the mind and the con- 
clusions of the judgment are unaffected by the 
march or the conflicts of armies. 

If the South had procured foreign aid, or of 
itself had proved an overmatch for the Gov- 
ernment, would that have changed the opinions 
which prevailed in the North, and which Mr. 
Webster enforced and sustained with his great 
ability,asto the powers and faculties of the Fed- 
eral Constitution? They would have remained 
unchanged. The reason, the intelligence, of 
neither party, as to their respective theories, 
were altered ; but while this was so abstractly, 
yet practically and in all the relations which 
the southern States sustained to the Govern- 
ment, as established by the result of the war, 
they accepted the condition, submitted to the 
practical workings of the Constitution, so far 
as that they could not secede or break up the 
Union, or dissolve their connection with it, 
and would live peaceably and quietly under it. 

The great question presented, whether States 
had a right to secede, was determined by bat- 
tle and the conflict of arms ; the solution was 
practically made that States could not secede, 
and that the Union of the States should remain 
intact; the South made the issue, the North 
accepted it ; the verdict of arms was against 
the South, and to that conclusion, settled by a 
tribunal higher than the courts, and from 
which there is no appeal, they submit. What 
more can you expect? What more anticipate 
or hope for? You have triumphed ; the vic- 
tory is yours ; thefruitsof it should be equality, 
peace, harmony, prosperity. You have ad- 
mitted them to representation ; have raised the 
former slaves to the rights of citizenship ; the 
States, by the Constitution, have equal power, 



dignity, and honor. We are again one undi- 
vided people. ]■] pluribus timim is again our 
motto in form ; but how can it be in the sense 
and spirit of its original, which was the pride 
and boast of Washington, Adams, Jefferson. 
Madison, and others, by whoso wisdom and 
statesmanship the charter of our liberties was 
formed and preserved, if distinctions and in- 
equalities are kept up ? Let it not be said that 
this great right should be deferred because of 
some disorders in the South. 

After such a long and terrible conflict, which 
aroused for a time the passions and animosi- 
ties of men ; after such losses, privations, and 
sufferings, which a war only could produce, 
would you expect a sudden transition to quiet- 
ness, to order, and to law? Human passions 
require time to cool, to subside; human nature 
needs time with attendant auspicious circum- 
stances to become conformed to other condi- 
tions ; there is always an extreme or refrac- 
tory element in every community, sraall in 
comparison to the whole, yet of sufficient 
strength for a time to irritate and disturb the 
body-politic ; it assumes all forms and prac- 
tices all devices, despite the wishes for the good 
order and harmony of the community. 

But evil exists in the North, and in every 
section of the country; crimes of all grades 
and flagrancy are committed. Newspapers 
are freighted with their accounts, and the lov- 
ers of law and tranquillity are mourning over 
the depravity and disturbances which prevail; 
but these should not prolong a policy, wrong 
in its nature and inception, and which can only 
be productive of mischief in the future, as it 
has been of evil in the past. I have wondered 
at the facility and readiness with which com- 
parative tranquillity and order wore restored 
in the South, when it is recollected that, the 
war, in all its attributes of horror and destruc- 
tion, was brought to the homesteads of that 
gallant and once happy people. We should also 
view the subject from a southern stand-point, 
to be able to judge fairly and impartially. 

How different the treatment of the South 
has been from what the dictates of humanity 
and of sound policy prescribed, and how unlike 
the American character, which is marked by 
magnanimity and generosity. The bill author- 
izing the President to suspend the writ of habeas 



12 



corpus whenever he shall decide to do so is a 
plain and palpable infraction of the Constitu- 
tion, which declares that '"the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended 
unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the 
])ublic safety may require it." Rebellion is 
armed resistance to or an open and avowed 
renunciation of the authority of the Govern- 
ment. 

Invasion is a hostile entrance into the po.s- 
scssions of another, as of England by William 
the Norman, or of our own country by English 
troops in the days of our struggle for inde- 
pendence; but so cautious were the framers 
of the Constitution, and so strongly disposed 
to protect the liberty of the citizen, that they 
superadded the requisition of the "public 
safety," even incases of rebellion or invasion ; 
they did not intend to invest Congress with 
Ihe power of susi^ension iinless the peril and 
life of the Government required it. It was 
not any rebellion or invasion, or both, that 
should cause this latent and dangerous power 
to spring into action, for the term "public 
safety" means the safety and preservation of 
the Government. 

Congress alone can exercise this power 
when the emergency arises; they represent the 
States and the people, and their judgment on 
this subject is, in theory, the judgment of the 
country. This power cannot be delegated to 
another ; the discretion, consideration, and 
judgment of Congress cannot be transferred ; 
the crisis can only be judged by them, and no 
one man can constitutionally exercise the wis- 
dom, the prudence, the power of that body. 
As well might Congress delegate the war- 
making power to the President as the power 
to deprive the citizen of the right to this 
great writ, so indispensable to the enjoyment 
^' of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." 

The Supreme Court, in the case of Martin 
vs. Mott, in 12 Wheaton, laid down the rule in 
reference to statutes, and the reason is stronger 
and the rule more imperative when the Con- 
stitution gives a discretionary power to act. 
They said, " Whenever a statute gives a dis- 
cretionary power to any person, to be exercised 
Ijy him upon his own opinion of certain facts, 
it is a sound rule of construction that the 



statute constitutes him the sole and exclusive 
judge of the existence of those facts." It is 
a remarkable fact that in the history of our 
Government this great writ, so vital to the 
Republic, was never suspended till the year 
18G3, in the Presidency of Mr. Lincoln. The 
country having passed through all the excite- 
ments of its political organization, of nullifi- 
cation, and of war, without a resort to this 
extreme and dangerous experiment, it was 
left to the party now in power to make the 
first inroad into the Constitution and this 
great safeguard of popular liberty. 

Mr. Jefferson was so jealous of the rights of 
the citizen, and so opposed to the exercise of 
arbitrary power, that he stated in his corre- 
sjiondence he was opposed to the suspension 
of this writ in any case whatever, declaring 
himself in favor of "the eternal and unremit- 
ting force of the habeas corpus laws," and 
asked the question emphatically, " Why sus- 
pend the writ of habeas corpus in insurrections 
and rebellions?" Judge Story, in his Com- 
mentary on the Constitution, in writing on this 
writ, says, " It is therefore justly esteemed the 
great bulwark of personal liberty, since it is 
the appropriate remedy to ascertain whether 
any person is rightfully in confinement or not, 
and the cause of his confinement; and if no 
sufficient ground of detention appears, the party 
is entitled to his immediate discharge." He 
adds, "It would seem as the power is given to 
Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus 
in cases of rebellion or invasion, that the right 
to judge whether the exigency has arisen must 
exclusively belong to that body ;" and he refers 
to Chancellor Kent as entertaining the same 
opinion. 

In a time of profound peace, when the officers 
of the Government are respected and their 
functions performed in every section of the 
Union — nearly seven years after the war and 
the commencement of the work of reconstruc- 
tion, when taxes are levied and paid, and the 
courts sit in security, dispense justice to liti- 
gants, and execute their judgments — we find a 
portion of the South overrun by Federal sol- 
diers, which they are taxed to support ; private 
houses and families invaded; the citizen dragged 
away from his wife and children, and incar- 
cerated in distant prisons, without the common 



privilege of being informed of the author and 
cause of his arrest, and denied the right of 
habeas corpus, which is awarded to the com- 
monest felon. 

Such a course is subversive of all constitu- 
tional Government; it is destructive of civil 
liberty; strikes at the foundation of our insti- 
tutions, and sets up a dictator in the person 
of the President, clothing him with absolute 
power over the rights and liberties of the peo- 
ple, and if unrebuked will lead to a despotism 
infinitely greater than that exercised over our 
colonial existence. 

It was said by an eminent judge that the 
writ of habeas corpus is the angel of the Con- 
stitution; but it is now made the plaything of 
Congress and a puppet of the President. Our 
fathers would not, dared not, desired not, to 
violate the letter or the spirit of the Constitu- 
tion by the suppression of the writ and the 
oppression of the people. They estimated the 
value of the liberty of the citizen. They knew 
that without it life was intolerable and exist- 
ence a burden; but our present rulers and 
party in power, aided by a partisan judge, 
trample upon what is sacred and dear to the 
American heart. But I warn them against the 
smothered feelings of an outraged public, which 
may not always endure aggressions upon the 
Constitution and the personal rights of the 
people, but will, in time, rise in their majesty, 
and by constitutional means hurl them from 
power. Wrong will not always succeed or 
perpetuate itself. 

Mr. Webster, in his great speech at Bunker 
Hill, said, " If the true spark of civil and reli- 
gious liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human 
agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's 
central fire, it may be smothered for a time ; 
the ocean may overwhelm it ; mountains may 
press it down ; but its inherent and unconquer- 
able force will heave both the ocean and the 
land, and at some time or another, in some 
place or another, the volcano will break out 
and flame up to heaven." 

We sometimes hear gentlemen talk of look- 
ing to the South for " works meet for repent- 
ance," and when they have proof of such they 
will be willing to exercise the required clem- 
ency! These terms are general, and I have 
not heard any definition of them. We are 



therefore left to conjecture what they mean, 
and to wait for a clearer explanation of thia 
misty and indefinite generality when used in a 
political sense. General Longstreet, who com- 
manded in the armies of the South, whose mili- 
tary skill and prowess won many a battle-field, 
and whose name seemed to be identified with 
success, did "work meet for repentance" by 
accepting a lucrative oSice in the custom-house 
at New Orleans. 

Whether that was the rule or the exception 
we have not been informed ; but the work 
most essential has been performed. Govern- 
ments have been organized under your recon- 
struction laws ; Executives and Legislatures 
have been elected, judges installed, and law 
administered, education provided for, and sal- 
utary laws in many instances enacted; indus- 
try meets with its reward, labor is resuming 
its wonted channels, a recuperative energy 
manifests itself among the people, and the 
sun of prosperity is beginning to shine as for- 
merly upon the efforts and enterprise of that 
region. What more or better evidences of 
"accepting the situation " is wanted to com- 
plete the picture? 

It is not to be supposed that any Senaior 
would expect a southerner who applies to have 
disabilities removed to do so in a cringing or 
supplicating manner, with loud professions of 
loyalty and with humiliating promises of obe- 
dience and submission. A man who would 
thus act would disparage his claim, and by 
truckling and affected loyalty detract from the 
dignity and bearing of an American citizen. 
When he comes in the spirit and manhood of 
a patriot and asks a removal of the restric- 
tions under which he labors, by that very act 
he recognizes your authority, accepts the con- 
dition, renews his loyalty and allegiance to the 
altered situation, acknowledges secession to 
be a failure, and asks to be reinstated in all 
his original rights and privileges, that he may 
render to the Government the aid which intel- 
ligence and patriotism might bring to restore 
itto itsoriginal, healthful, constitutional action 
and policy, that ils miEsion and beneficent 
results may be a blessing to the people. 

Congress expects good governments to be 
formed and well administered, and yet by its 
legislation it excludes many of the best citi- 



14 



zens of the South from holding office. It keeps 
open a wound constantly irritated and calcu- 
lated to produce dissatisfaction and discontent. 
You expect the public mind of the South to 
be composed when you apply a constant irri- 
tant. There are now, perhaps, forty thousand 
persons prevented from holding office by reason 
of the fourteenth amendment. By keeping up 
disqualifications and prohibitions you derogata 
from the dignity and equality of States. You 
admit them to representation, yet dwarf their 
choice, limit their volition, and impair their 
coordinate authority and character as States. 

The distinguished William Pinckney, of 
Maryland, in discussing the Missouri question 
and denying the authority of Congress to im- 
pose the restriction upon the introduction of 
slavery into the Territories, said in emphatic 
terms, "No man can contradict me when I 
say that if you have this power you may 
squeeze down a new-born sovereign State to 
the size of a pigmy, and then, taking it between 
finger and thumb, stick it into some niche of 
the Union, and still continue by way of mock- 
ery to call it a State in the sense of the Consti- 
tution. You may waste it to a shadow and 
then introduce it iuto the society of flesh and 
blood, an object of scorn and derision. You 
may sweat and reduce it to a thing of skin and 
bone, and then place the ominous skeleton 
beside the ruddy and healthful members of the 
Union, that it may have leisure to mourn the 
lamentable difference between itself and its 
companions; to brood over its disastrous pro- 
motion, and to seek in justifiable discontent 
an opportunity for separation, insurrection, 
and rebellion." 

Patrick Henry is admitted to have been one 
of the wisest and most eloquent members of 
the Virginia convention which adopted the 
Constitution, and of the whole country ; in ti-ue 
eloquence he was unsurpassed, if equaled; his 
patriotism was kindled by the fires of the Revo- 
lution, and burned with a bright and unsullied 
luster. He thought he saw In the Constitution 
of the United States, then proposed, the ele- 
ments of tyranny and oppression to the States ; 
warned his countrymen against its adoption, 
and in concluding one of the ablest and most 
eloquent speeches of his life, said, "Gentle- 
men may retain their oplnlou?, but I look on 



that paper as the most fatal plan that could 
possibly be conceived to enslave a free people. 
If such be your rage for novelty, take it, and 
welcome ; but you never shall have my consent. 
My sentiments may appear extravagant, but I 
can tell you that a number of my fellow- citizens 
have kindred sentiments ; and I am anxious, 
if my country should come into the hands of 
tyranny, to exculpate myself from being in any 
degree the cause, and to exert my faculties to 
the utmost to extricate her." 

Senators, shall we not wipe out erery vestige 
of real or seeming oppression and wrong, every 
degrading distinction, every semblance of in- 
vidiousness, so that the people of this whole 
country may stand upon the broad foundation 
of equal laws and of equal rights, that the fears 
and predictions of the great Henry may not be 
verified in our experience, and that the pen of 
the historian may write of us in after years 
that we were the freest, happiest people that 
ever lived under the benign influence of the 
equality and dignity of States composing a 
Union of the whole ? 

Macaulay, in his History of England, said 
that according to the purest idea of constitu- 
tional royalty the prince reigns and does not 
govern. As our form of government is supe- 
rior to others, should it not be the aim and 
object of legislators so to conduct the affairs 
of State, to fashion and mold our laws, to 
lighten the burdens and multiply the advan- 
tages, that the General Government may be 
felt and known only in its salutary influences 
and operations, and thus secure the admiration 
and confidence of the people of the country? 

The justice and policy of removing the legal 
and political disabilities of southern citizens 
is so apparent, and they unite in urging it upon 
Congress with such a degree of force, that it 
seems more than strange to an impartial ob- 
server that it should be postponed for a single 
day. After the adoption of the fifteenth amend- 
ment, which placed the ballot in the hands of 
eight hundred thousand negroes, made citizens 
of the United States and eligible to office, it 
became a moral and political necessity to put 
the white population of the South upon the 
same basis of equality. The idea of giving 
to former slaves political privileges denied to 
their masters, and making them in that respect 



15 



superior to the latter, was a species of moral 
torture and injustice that finds no parallel in 
historj, and which shocks our sensibility and 
sense of justice. 

It is well known that during the war the col- 
ored population of the South adhered to the 
cause of their masters, supported their families, 
and by their labor and efforts in raising cotton 
and other products sustained to a great extent 
the confederacy. The aid and comfort which 
they gave to that government were voluntary 
and effectual ; they remained faithful to their 
owners, and there is no doubt if their services 
had not been required in the field they would 
have been cheerfully rendered in the camp. 
When in the last struggles of that government, 
and when its fate was too plainly sealed, the 
efforts to organize them into military corps were 
entirely successful. The attempt, therefore, 
to distinguish between them and the whites, 
on the ground of the loyalty of the one and the 
disloyalty of the other, is simply preposterous ; 
if loyal at all, if they understood what it meant, 
they were loyal to the South ; the cause of the 
master was their cause, and his success their 
subject of rejoicing. If it had not been so, 
insurrection and rapine, with all their untold 
consequences, would have occurred. 

To those who never held slaves the relation 
cannot be fully appreciated. There was a 
bond of union, of regard and attachment 
which brought the slave into a closer con- 
nection with his owner and his family; the 
children of each grew up together, and the 
mutual . acts of kindness and attention, the 
care and protection of the slave, in health 
and sickness, and their constant proximit}', 
produced a reciprocal feeling of confidence. 
Next to the interest which the master en- 
tertained for his family, he felt for his 
slave ; this was not of a sordid character, but 
that which grew out of the kindlier feel- 
ings of the heart. I speak of its general char- 
acter, and from my knowledge of its existence 
'and realities. The relation itself made the 
slave loyal to his master and his cause. If 
you could submit to-morrow to the decision 
of the negroes of the South the question of 
general amnesty, without qualification, and 
abstain from any interference with their con- 
sideration of the subject, they would not hes- 



itate to decide it favorably. Why should 
Congress now delay to do what becomes its 
justice, honor, and magnanimity? 

The objection preferred by some that it would 
not be safe to do so is unworthy of a great 
and powerful people. No sensible man can 
affect to believe that the granting of amnesty 
to the comparatively few now laboring under 
legal disabilities could by possibility endanger 
the Government or injuriously affect the coun- 
try. They all enjoy the right of suffrage ; the 
right to hold ofiBce cannot injure any one ; the 
people who have the ballot should have the 
right to select the persons to be voted for ; by 
abridging that right, you impair the freedom 
and the privilege of the ballot. Universal 
suffrage exists but in name when you restrict 
its exercise to objects within circumscribed 
limits; you preserve the theory, while you 
suppress to that extent the enjoyment. 

If you would submit the same question to 
the Federal soldiers who served in the war, or 
to that portion of them who were engaged in 
battle, you would have a similar favorable 
expression. There is a magnanimity about 
the soldier, a generosity that belongs to the 
chivalry of his calling and the nobleness of 
his nature. 

Generally, the objection comes from those 
who were distant from the scenes of danger, 
or who participated only in civil affairs during 
the unhappy strife. These are the last to relin- 
quish their prepossessions or prejudices, and 
who brood longest over by-gone scenes. This 
may be in accordance in many cases with some 
peculiar condition of mental or moral consti- 
tution ; but it is surely not in consonance with 
the kindlier and nobler feelings of the heart, 
which lead to liberal and humane results. 

If you wish to conquer the prejudices of 
the South you can do it by kindness and gen- 
erosity. If you desire to obliterate the mem- 
ory of the past you can do it best by making 
pleasant and happy the prospects of the future. 
If you wish to restore harmony in feeling, in 
counsel, in cooperation, in efforts to build up 
the fortunes and j^rosperity of the country — to 
make us again a united and happy people — you 
can do it by the benign and gentler means 
and influences of confidence and amity. The 
esteem and friendship of others can never be 



16 



LIBRPIRY OF CONGRESS 



013 786 440 fl 



secured by keeping alive unpleasant memories 
and a constant reminder of former differences. 
But remove all traces of them, and associa- j 
tions and reflections will spring up to cheer 
and brighten the prospect. If there is any- 
thing which a public man should surrender, it 
is animosity and prejudice. If, as an individ- 
ual, he should sutfer them to linger iti a sickly 
existence, as a statesman he should speedily 
sacrifice tbem ; remembering that be does not 
represent those feelings in the community, nor 
any part of it, but that he is the representative 
rather of the generous and nobler attributes 
of the nation — of peace, conciliation, dignity, 
and honor. He best represents the national 
will and the national heart when he reflects 
the sentiments of a genuine and lofty magnan- 
imity. 

It has been said that the subliraest word in 
our language is duty, and the most important, 
responsihilitij I that the man who has con- 
quered a nation is not great until he has con- 
quered himself, for true greatness is moral 
greatness and nobility of spirit; and that he 
who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge 
over which he himS'elf must pass. Let us rise 
to the moral grandeur of duty and respons- 
ibility, achieve a victory over our prejudices, 
over our memories of the past — our resent- 
ments, and spirit of retaliation — rise to the 
dignity and honor of our station, and to the 
exalted standard of pure and generous patriot- 
ism, forgetting ourselves and all our conflicts 
and differences in the love we bear to our fel- 
lows, equal in all the elements of true manhood 
to ourselves. It was said by an eminent his- 
torian that the true end of politics is to make 



life easy and a people happy. Let us verify in 
our history to day this adage of a wise man, 
and leave no blot upon the history of ourti'.Tif,--; 
by maiutaining distinctions among equals. 

You boast of having struck the manacles 
from the hands of the slaves, while you place 
them upon the mind, the volition, the freedom 
of the whites. Let us act up to the wisdom 
of statesmen, and while you proclaim the lib- 
erty of bondmen, pronounce the emancipation 
of our race; withdraw your military from 
southern soil and restore tranquillity and order. 
Suffer not the fleeting and unworthy influences 
of party to weigh down the mighty balancesof 
human rights, the immunities of the citizen 
and the demands of the nation; but in view 
of the humiliations, sufferings, and destruction 
of the past, looking ■with the prescience and 
hope of the patriot to the stupendous greatness 
and glories of a happy future, rise to the true 
character of our position, and restore to our 
people and the States equality, justice, conti- 
dence, and constitutional ritle, the secure and 
solid foundations of free republican institutions-! 

Can there be anything in the history of gov- 
ernments and of men higher, nobler, snb- 
limer than a great people, by their Represent- 
atives and Senators, obliterating all traces of 
proscription and bringing back into a common 
fellowship, into full communion and brother- 
hood, those who are "bone of our bone and 
flesh of our flesh," who speak our language, 
worship the same God, and seek to serve the 
same country ? Send, therefore, the white- 
winged messenger of peace, reconciliation, and 
hope to those who will contribute to our 
growth, unity, and prosperity. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



.11 11 11 li'i 'I' ' 
013 786 440 A • 



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